Sky watchers can have a great gift tonight.
The Tau Herculid meteor shower will be visible during the night hours of Monday, May 30 until the early hours of Tuesday morning, May 31. While experts warn it could be an “all-or-nothing” event, the Tau Herculids rain has the potential to turn into a “meteorite storm,” capable of producing up to 1,000 meteors per hour.
Or maybe we don’t have any meteor showers.
What scientists do know is that on the night of May 30 to the morning of May 31, the Earth will pass through the remains of a broken comet called 73P / Schwassmann-Wachmann or SW3, “according to NASA.
“If the fragments were ejected at speeds in excess of twice the normal speed, fast enough to reach Earth, we could have a meteor shower,” said Lee Mohon of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. “Spitzer’s observations published in 2009 indicate that at least some fragments are moving fast enough. That’s one of the reasons astronomers are excited.
“We can’t be sure what we’ll see. We can only hope it’s spectacular.”
If a meteor shower occurs, the Tau Herculids will move slowly by meteorite standards and will probably faint.
North American observers under clear, dark skies have the best chance of seeing a Tau Herculid around midnight CDT.
Meteor showers can also be seen through the Virtual Telescope Project.